Explaining why, the running back suggested the team had fallen into a rut under Norv Turner.

“I think we were just complacent,” Mathews told the NFL Network. “At times, because he had spent a lot of time there, it was just the same routine over and over again. There wasn’t anything new. He did everything he could to make us win, no doubt about it...We thought we were owed to win games.”

Mathews also spoke of how he intends to stay healthy.

“Everyone always ask me if I am made of glass,” Mathews said. “I just need to stop taking so many hits, quit fighting for extra yards when I don’t need to. It has been a little bit of bad luck too. I broke both my collarbones and that’s rare.”

My reactions:

• Several Chargers players will not appreciate Mathews speaking for them. Did he intend to speak for them? Only he knows, but I doubt it. Mathews has been a supporting player and personality, not a team leader, in his three seasons with the club.

• Mathews is repeating the change-is-good message of Chargers president Dean Spanos and showing appreciation for new coach Mike McCoy. Make no mistake: Spanos is excited, as he explained to our Kevin Acee.

• The comment about not "fighting for yards" is nearly identical to what Mathews' locker-room neighbor Ronnie Brown told me after the season, as Mathews listened in. Brown said it's a lesson that he himself had to learn. The ankle injury Mathews suffered in the second game of his career, in 2010, when Jaguars defenders stood him up and twisted him over a pile of bodies, may have been due to excessive effort. But his collarbone fractures weren't caused by fighting for extra yards.

• Mathews ought to be excited about the new coaching staff. If any Chargers player needs a chance to start anew, it's No. 24. Then again, I doubt Turner will ever beg his new employer, the Browns, to trade for Mathews, who, to pick one example, wasn't suitably fit when training camp opened in 2011.

• I think Turner probably asked too much of Mathews in his first game back from the first collarbone injury. I also think Mathews couldn't have appreciated how A.J. Smith responded to his critical fumble in that same game, the 27-3 loss to the Falcons in Week Three. Venting to Acee a few days later, Smith spoke of "chronic fumblers" and what happens to them: "You will be somebody else's fumbler." Ironically, Smith got shown the door, whereas Mathews survived.

The 2013 season should let us know if Mathews will follow Smith and Turner out of San Diego.